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S. Frederick Starr 
 
 
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measure, although the best prospect is via Turkmenistan’s new port at 
Turkmenbashi and thence to Baku, Turkey, and the West. Turkmenistan, 
meanwhile, anticipating such a move by Moscow and reducing its vulnerability, 
has already shifted the export of a significant part of its cotton crop from Russia 
to Turkey. 
Finally, it should be noted that Russia has already begun to play the “water and 
electricity card” against both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Thanks to a com-
bination of pressure and bribes dating back half a decade, Moscow now owns 
the emerging Kambarata hydropower plant and effectively controls the 
Toktogul reservoir and power plant, both in Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, it has ma-
neuvered, unsuccessfully for now, to control Tajikistan’s main power plant and 
reservoir as well. Thanks to this, it has the power to cripple Uzbek agriculture 
by cutting off its water supply during crucial phases of the growing season, and 
to damage Turkmen farming as well. 
How Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan Have Responded to the EEU 
Turkmenistan has based its refusal even to consider joining the Eurasian Eco-
nomic Union, as well as the related Collective Security Treaty Organization 
and its military alliance, on its non-aligned posture, which is enshrined in the 
country’s founding documents. In 1992 the United Nations recognized Turk-
menistan’s “permanent neutrality.”
Uzbekistan from the outset noted that with a majority of the seats in the Eura-
sian Union’s ruling institutions, Russians would dominate the new organiza-
tion. This and other features convinced them that the true goal of the Eurasian 
Union was political, not economic, and on this basis refused to join. It joined 
the Collective Security Treaty Organization at its founding but suspended its 
membership in 1999. While Tashkent re-joined in 2006, it terminated its mem-
bership in 2013 on the grounds that the CSTO was ineffective and controlled by 
Moscow. An important reason for the withdrawal is that Moscow was using 
the CSTO as a tool for installing a military base in the Kyrgyz sector of the 
Ferghana valley, a move that Tashkent adamantly opposes. During the second 
Kyrgyz revolution in 2010, President Karimov succeeded in gaining China’s 

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Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan: Staying Away 
 
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support for his stance on Putin’s Ferghana base, at which Putin allowed the 
matter to lapse.
1
It is often said, incorrectly, that the governments of Turkmenistan and Uzbeki-
stan are inward-looking, reclusive, and isolationist. There have been periods 
since independence when this was true. Now, however, both are reaching out to 
new investors and new markets. For both countries, China is at the top of the 
list. Both have signed major trade agreements with China. So as not to be de-
pendent on the one existing east-west railroad line to China via Customs Union 
member Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan is pushing hard to build a more direct route to 
Chinese territory across the Tien Shan Mountains via Kyrgyzstan. Even 
though Kyrgyzstan is scheduled to become a member of the Customs Union 
and the EAU as soon as its parliament ratifies the agreement, it is assumed that 
China will not allow Moscow or the EAU to interdict trade along this sub-
corridor. Both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have welcomed major invest-
ments from Chinese industries, which come with ready access to the Chinese 
market.
This was met by China’s economic outreach to them, which has been so effec-
tive as to pose the prospect of substituting Russian economic domination of 
their economies with massive interventions by China. Both countries, mean-
while, have therefore worked to expand trade and investment contacts with Eu-
rope, Turkey, and especially with South and East Asia, including India, Paki-
stan, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. 
Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan’s Responses: Too Little and Too Late? 
For now, there is good reason to be skeptical about the long-term effectiveness 
of Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan’s efforts to hedge pressures from Moscow. 
They have been most effective in enlisting China as a partner to balance Rus-
sia’s economic and political power. But China has to date been as reticent in the 
political and security areas as it has been eager in the field of investments and 
economic ties. To be sure, economic links are a form of political power, as dra-
matically demonstrated by the geopolitical impact of the Turkmenistan-China 
1
Stephen Blank, “A Sino-Uzbek Axis in Central Asia?,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 
September 1, 2010, http://old.cacianalyst.org/?q=node/5395. 

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